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The world in early 2026 stands at what may be an historical inflection point. Forces of hierarchy – rooted in centuries of imperial dominance, racialised power inequalities, elite networks of capital, military supremacy and intellectual-ideological control – are under direct, sustained challenge from counter-hegemonic resistance. This is not mere opposition or episodic protest; it is the active construction of parallel institutions, transnational networks of organic intellectuals, and coordinated political-economic action on a global scale.
Antonio Gramsci’s insights into hegemony – as consent manufactured through civil society institutions, intellectuals and cultural practices – and counter-hegemony – as a patient “war of position” to build alternative consent – provide the analytical lens. Amitav Acharya’s multiplex world order refined by critical multiplexity concepts describes the structural shift: no longer a single hegemonic script, but multiple overlapping “screens” where diverse powers, modernities, institutions and actors compete and coexist.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.
Critical multiplexity, as theorised here, sharpens this by foregrounding enduring imperial legacies, power inequalities and the agency of subaltern forces. It reveals how hierarchies mutate and persist unless dismantled through people-centred blocs that prioritise dignity, international law enforcement and liberation over elite stabilisation.
This contest plays out vividly in the parallel architectures now contending over Palestine’s future amid Gaza’s ongoing devastation and the fragile 2025 ceasefire. On one side stands the elite-driven project of domination rebranded as peace; on the other, an insurgent, Global South-led and grassroots-supported effort to enforce accountability and sever complicity. An alliance across states, societies and cultures – North, South, East, West – against the global imperialist bloc led by the United States.
On February 19, 2026, US President Donald Trump convened the inaugural meeting of the (Orwellian) “Board of Peace” in Washington, DC, at the renamed Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace. Over 40 nations participated (with heavy representation from Gulf allies including the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Morocco, plus others like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Albania, Indonesia, Kosovo, Egypt, Jordan and Bulgaria).
Trump announced US pledges of USD 10 billion, with members collectively committing USD 7 billion for Gaza reconstruction under his 20-point ceasefire plan – endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803 in November 2025. The board oversees Hamas disarmament, an International Stabilisation Force (potentially involving 20,000 troops and a US-led military base), technocratic governance via bodies like the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), Egyptian/Jordanian training of Palestinian police and redevelopment conditioned on compliance and external oversight.
Framed as “modernisation” and an “investment corridor”, this recasts occupation as redevelopment: digital IDs, monitored cashless systems, liaison structures with a territorially weakened Palestinian Authority and indefinite deferral of full sovereignty. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, declined participation, calling it a “colonialist operation – others deciding for the Palestinians”.
The Vatican similarly rejected involvement due to the body’s structure and high barriers (USD 1 billion for permanent seats). This exemplifies hegemonic continuity: US-chaired elite consensus blending technocratic management with messianic undertones, manufacturing consent around conditional “peace” that stabilises domination, normalises annexation and, more significantly, universalises imperial interests through international bodies.
Parallel to this, however, rises The Hague Group, formed on January 31, 2025, in The Hague by founding members Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa (initially eight; Belize later withdrew). Convened by Progressive International and co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa, it pursues coordinated legal and diplomatic measures to uphold International Court of Justice provisional measures (from South Africa’s genocide case), International Criminal Court arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, and third-state obligations to prevent genocide and end occupation.
The group’s momentum built through key milestones: the July 2025 Emergency Conference in Bogotá (over 30 states participating; 13 – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Türkiye – immediately committing to six measures: halting arms transfers, refusing port docking for implicated vessels, de-flagging ships, reviewing public contracts, activating universal jurisdiction and more); September 2025 alignment at the UN General Assembly; and ongoing high-level meetings.
This represents insurgent multilateralism from the Global South: parallel institutions enforcing law against impunity where Western-led bodies falter.
Activists sing as they welcome members of the Global Sumud (Gaza) Flotilla, at OR Tambo International Airport, in Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. Photo: Themba Hadebe/AP.
Converging with this state effort is the grassroots counterpart: the People’s Congress for The Hague Group (March 7, 2026), in Amsterdam. Organised by movements including Progressive International, Palestinian Youth Movement, BDS, DiEM25 and others, it convened social movements, trade unions, parliamentarians, jurists, dockworkers, journalists and leaders from over 30 countries. Closed sessions mapped supply chains sustaining Israel’s military apparatus, coordinated port/transport disruptions, campaigns against contracts/finance/shipping/energy ties, pursued legal accountability and align cross-border strategies.
The public evening featured converging voices: UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, Greta Thunberg, Omar Barghouti (BDS co-founder), Hind Khoudary (Gazan journalist), Jeremy Corbyn, Sally Rooney, Chris Smalls (labour organiser), Yara Hawari and others from law, culture, politics and resistance – demanding an end to the Nakba through material severance of complicity.
This duality embodies “critical multiplexity” in real-time practice. The Board of Peace represents hierarchical stabilisation: vested elites embedded in global capital-military structures use civil society-like international mechanisms to rebrand domination, defer subaltern agency and maintain asymmetries. In Gramscian terms, it manufactures consent around elite “peace”.
In opposition, The Hague Group and People’s Congress forge counter-hegemony: Global South states construct alternative institutions to enforce law, while organic intellectuals – rooted in subaltern struggles across labour, academia, culture and resistance – build counter-culture through disruption, solidarity networks and discourse.
This “war of position” centres Palestinians and oppressed peoples, refusing the deferral of sovereignty and dismantling material circuits of annexation, apartheid and alleged genocide.
In this contested multiplex world, two rival architectures advance in parallel – one stabilising entrenched hierarchies via reconstruction pledges and external control; the other dismantling complicity through coordinated state action and popular convergence. The future of Palestine – and the larger global order – depends on the endurance of resistance and the commitment of states and peoples to sever enabling links.
Critical multiplexity illuminates the rupture: hierarchies are not inevitable; they are challenged by sustained construction of people-centred alternatives that place dignity and justice at the forefront. Which vision prevails on these overlapping screens will define the emerging order.
Inderjeet Parmar is professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and writes the American Imperium column for The Wire. His Twitter handle is @USEmpire. He is the author of several books, including Foundations of the American Century and is currently writing on the history of the US foreign policy establishment and Trump and the Crisis of American Empire.
Sasikumar Sundaram is senior lecturer in international politics at City St George’s, University of London, director of the Global (Dis)Order Research Group and Vice Chair of the Global South Caucus of the International Studies Association. He is the author of Rhetorical Powers: How Rising States Shape International Order (CUP, 2026).
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